A journal featuring stories by team members on what it takes to race on the pro women's cycling circuit.

You'll get an inside look into other aspects of racing such as travelling, preparing for a big event like a national or world championship, and juggling life's many challenges like work, school, and family. Make your selection from the articles below:

Christine Thorburn – May 26 – The Devil is in the Details
Katheryn Curi – May 15 – THE Dress
Helen Kelly – April 21 – Altitude Training
Mara Abbott – April 14 – Campus Life
Rachel Heal – April 7 – Tales from Training Camp

Saturday April 7th saw almost all of the Webcor team squash into the team cars and head down to San Luis Obispo for the annual team training camp. We were missing Katheryn Curi, who was in Europe preparing to take on the cobbles of Belgium in the Tour of Flanders; but she was with us in spirit, and the "legend of the Easter Bunny ears" was in our minds. It's maybe a bit later than normal for a team training camp, but we were racing every weekend in March, so having it any earlier would have necessitated dragging Helen away from an Aussie summer and me away from the February rain in Manchester (note to Karen for next year…I am not so attached to the rain in Manchester that I would complain too loudly about having to exchange it for the sun in CA).

The first item on the agenda for the weekend was a photo shoot, and luckily for us the weather was being nice and the whole thing went very smoothly (I was a bit worried after hearing horror stories of hours and hours of riding up and down last year, or torrential rain at the Colavita photo shoot a few weeks ago). We posed for a few shots on and around the team car, and then rode in circles for a while, practicing our synchronized U-turns and trying to look natural whilst riding straight towards a cameraman and hoping he'd jump out of the way in time.

With the photoshoot complete and our stomachs suitably full of barbecue, we chamoised up again and set off for a ride with John and Linda Elgart, the Voler reps. Just 15 minutes into the ride, we hit our first obstacle, when Helen's bike emitted a tink tink tink noise, followed by psheeew, followed quickly by a complete lack of air in her back tire. Fortunately, we had our resident mechanic on hand who gallantly gave his back wheel to Helen enabling us to be back on our way asap (a gesture which I'm sure had nothing whatsoever to do with the road ahead taking an upward turn, and his hours on the bike this week already exceeding his hours on the bike for the preceding six months). The rest of the ride passed fairly uneventfully, and was an enjoyable three hours along some fantastic roads.

Saturday night, Jim from Voler had kindly agreed to take us out for sushi…a fact that when we were informed of it had Mara leaping about with glee – she does this a lot :-) and me slightly nervous (I haven't been able to eat sushi since a bad experience with it in Toronto a few years ago…that should teach me not to eat fish in a place that is quite obviously miles from the sea).

We arrived at the restaurant and were shown to our table, in our own separate room They obviously either had a slightly dubious view of how rowdy a women's cycling team is, or possibly more likely realized that we would need a spare table to accommodate the vast mountain of sushi that we were about to order. I seriously don't think I have ever seen that much sushi, for about ten minutes there was a steady stream of waiters bringing plate after plate of amazing looking food, and with the exception of a few grains of rice, we devoured the lot (and to my personal delight I discovered some types of sushi that I really like…now I just need to try and remember what they were called).

Sunday morning started a bit more leisurely than the day before and after a relaxed breakfast we set off on what was to be the longest ride of the weekend, and one that started with an 8-mile climb. In an attempt to avoid riding on the 101 (which is not actually freeway at that point, but try telling that to the RVs passing at 80mph) we found an alternative route up a dirt road, cyclo cross here we come. The route we took was an amazing loop, rolling all the way, with a few longer drags thrown in here and there, just to catch you off guard. About halfway round, with the breakfast pbj sandwiches and coffee kicking in, we had a mad ten minutes or so of sprinting randomly for signs, fence posts, telegraph poles and pretty much anything else you could legitimately (or dubiously) call a finish line.

Inspired by our apparent enjoyment of sprinting, Karen decided to have us stop for a session of sprint drills (actually I think it may have been pre-planned given our less than perfect execution of lead outs in races to date…we definitely have the strength and potential there, it just needs a bit of refinement). After an extended debate about where our start and finish lines should be, we lined up in teams of four and the first race was on. To be fair, I think the best summation of that first effort should be "room for improvement," but as we repeated the exercise, things slowly came together and after a while we were looking like Boonen's lead-out train (ok maybe I exaggerate a little, but we were definitely looking better than when we started). Once we'd all tired ourselves out completely, we started back on the homeward leg of the ride, most of which thankfully was downhill, and we arrived back at the hotel, all ready for a rest (except Mara who seemingly has an unending supply of energy).

So, back to Katheryn and the Easter Bunny. A while ago she had let us into the story of how one Easter she wanted Easter bunny ears to attach to her helmet, but unable to find ears, had cruelly sacrificed a stuffed bunny. With this in mind I had purchased a stuffed bunny and brought him with me to camp. So armed with camera and said bunny, we headed off to the tea shop for drinks and bunny slaying where we had a very very entertaining hour torturing the bunny (and possibly scaring the other clientele slightly by our wielding of a large butcher's knife) and capturing the antics on camera so Katheryn would know we were thinking of her. (I should just add the disclaimer at this point, that no real stuffed bunnies were harmed in the above entertainments.)

Monday morning we met up with Jim again for a tour of the Voler factory. It's amazing how much goes into making all the clothing and it was fascinating to see all the different parts of the process from design to finished items.

For our final ride of the weekend we headed up to San Miguel for a 3-hour out and back route to Parkfield (population 18). In contrast to yesterday's rolling ride, today's route was a flatish one, with one big hill in the middle. I'm sure the ride should have been a really enjoyable one, except that I was having one of those days where times seems to just creep, and having looked at my watch five times in the first 15 minutes, I realized it was going to be a long day on the bike, but i guess it's getting through days like this that make you a stronger rider!

After a minor delay for a puncture, we successfully negotiated the climb and headed down to Parkfield for a fill up on water and a second sprint session. The first sprint drill confirmed that we must have learned something from yesterday's practice, as we executed two near perfect lead outs and the sprinters crossed the line neck and neck...now we just have to work on getting it right at the end of a race where everyone is bumping elbows at high speed, bombing into corners, dodging road furniture, watching near crashes left and right, and trying to work out which of the yelled instructions are coming from your sprinter rather than the opposition…but one step at a time, right!

With the sprints out of the way and the wind behind us, we sped back to the car, awoke the sleeping Bernard, grabbed some burritos, and headed back north, all pretty much exhausted, but happy after a successful weekend's camp.